Anteaters Lose Way in San Jose : Spartans Give Them a 71-55 Shellacking

UC Irvine’s 1985-86 basketball season has been a soft-shoe routine in which each step forward has been followed by a giant leap back. The result has been a team which appears to be running in place, and getting nowhere.

The Anteaters made their West Coast television debut Sunday afternoon. Irvine players might have preferred to have this telecast preempted.

San Jose State outplayed Irvine in every phase of the game to record a 71-55 Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. win in front of 2,407 spectators in San Jose Civic Auditorium.

The Anteaters haven’t been more than two games above the .500 mark all season, and Sunday’s loss struck another blow for mediocrity. Irvine is 10-9 overall, 6-4 in PCAA play.

Senior forward Johnny Rogers led an inoffensive Irvine offense with 15 points, then wondered if the Anteaters would ever stop plunging headlong into valleys after reaching modest peaks.

“For this time of year, it’s sad,” Rogers said. “I thought we were peaking. The season’s two-thirds over. We should be peaking.”

But Sunday’s debacle made the Anteaters look more middle-of-the-pack than a team chasing Nevada Las Vegas and New Mexico State for the PCAA lead.

“I thought it was a good game to be on TV,” Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan said with more than a trace of sarcasm. “Now, every kid in Orange County and L.A. will say, ‘I want to go to Irvine. They need players.’ ”

The Anteaters shot 36% from the field, (18 of 50) committed 19 turnovers and suffered through a stretch of ineptness that lasted from the middle of the first half to midway through the second.

With the score tied at 20-20, San Jose State (13-7, 6-5) outscored Irvine, 16-9, over the final seven minutes of the first half to take a 36-29 lead.

Any adjustments Irvine made at halftime failed miserably.

The Anteaters were outscored, 16-2, over the first 10 minutes of the second half. It adds up to a span of about 17 minutes in which Irvine was outscored, 32-11.

Said Rogers: “They killed us. That’s all there is to it. They just killed us.”

Ricky Berry, the Spartans’ leading scorer, was playing with the flu after missing practice on Friday and Saturday. He came off the bench to hit 7 of 10 shots and finish with a game-high 17 points. Forward Reggie Owens and center Gerald Thomas together totaled 21 points and 17 rebounds and, more important, thoroughly frustrated Irvine forward Tod Murphy.

Murphy, who entered the game averaging 20.9 points per game, was held to 8 points on 3 for 12 shooting. His first field goal came at the 9:35 mark of the second half. It was only the second time this season that Murphy failed to score in double figures.

According to Thomas, the Spartans’ game plan included plenty of emphasis on defending Rogers and Murphy. “The plan was to not let them get the ball, and if they did, leave them nothing to do with it,” he said.

It certainly worked against Murphy, who had his least productive game since a four-point effort in a 53-48 loss to Fresno State on Jan. 9. Murphy was surrounded by Spartans nearly every time he got the ball.

“Frustrating?” he said. “Yeah, it’s very frustrating. Everywhere you turn, you’re bumping into a body. Sometimes (a foul) is called, but most of the time, it’s not.

“It makes it a little difficult to do anything.”